Mormonism's Crisis of Faith

In the Old Testament, there is a story about Nebuchadnezzar II, the great king of the Neo-Babylonian empire, that holds the root of Mormonism's unique interpretation of Christian theology. The king is tormented by a cryptic dream in which he sees an enormous statue of a man, forged from four different metals, destroyed by a stone that was cut from a mountain “without hands.” The stone then becomes a mountain itself that grows to fill the whole earth. Wise men and astrologers throughout the empire try and fail to decode the dream to the intense dismay of the king, who, in a fit of rage, orders the slaughter of all wise men in his kingdom. Concerned, Daniel asks God for a crash course in dream interpretation. That night in a vision, God reveals to Daniel the entirety of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and its accompanying interpretation. Daniel then explains to the king that the statue's four different metals represent successive kingdoms of men, beginning with Babylon. And the stone represents the indestructible and eternal Kingdom of God.